Even though trade negotiations have increasingly come to focus on regulatory issues, the full impacts, that is, both social costs and benefits of regulatory changes, often remain unexamined in trade impact assessments. To bridge this gap, we scrutinize the theoretical foundations, methodologies...

Can consumers trust that the food they buy in the supermarket, even if imported, is not harmful to their health? What would be the consequences if their trust in existing health and safety standards were to be undermined by recognizing lower foreign standards? Against the backdrop of public...

This paper surveys current debates on the distributive cycle. The literature builds on R.M. Goodwin's seminal 1967 chapter titled "A growth cycle." We review theoretical motivations for the distributive cycle, which, despite significant differences, all imply that macroeconomic activity leads...

This paper surveys current debates on the distributive cycle. The literature builds on R.M. Goodwin's seminal 1967 chapter titled "A growth cycle." We review theoretical motivations for the distributive cycle, which, despite significant differences, all imply that macroeconomic activity leads...

This paper investigates the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in oil markets, focusing on the great oil price crash in April 2020. Using a 5-variable structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model, the study identifies an oil price shock arising from the pandemic together with supply, demand, and...

The current negotiations on a transatlantic Free-Trade Agreement between the US and the EU (TTIP) have raised substantial public interest. Several studies have highlighted the positive economic effects of TTIP. A new ÖFSE report shows that these claims are overstated and neglect crucial...

Many least developed countries (LDCs) face commodity dependence on the export and import side. This paper develops a structuralist computable general equilibrium model for commodity-dependent LDCs and simulates global commodity price shocks for Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Mozambique. Results show...

The European Union (EU) promotes the Free Trade Agreement with Vietnam (EVFTA) as an important milestone of its trade agenda. The agreement, whose part with EU-only issues is supposed to be ratified in 2019, is the most comprehensive one that the EU has concluded with a developing country so...

What are the economic effects of TTIP? In the public debate, a few selected studies, mostly commissioned by the European Commission, have set the tone, suggesting that effects are positive on both sides of the Atlantic. The studies are from Ecorys (2009), CEPR (2013), CEPII (2013) and...

In late 2016, a decision will be made by the Council of the European Union whether to launch the ratification process of the free trade agreement between the EU and Canada (CETA). The European Commission (EC) is promoting the agreement with the prospects of more trade, stronger economic...